J-Bad April 08

On my birthday in April, I flew down to J-Bad to inspect a Afghan Border Police (ABP) training site. We rode on a State Department, Soviet built Mi-8. The State Dept. does not use Americans as pilots and generally hires out all security functions to Gurhkas.

Here are the ABP recruits taking in some class instruction.

This is a picture of a "green zone". The green zone obviously gets its name from being green in contrast to the overall brown arid surroundings. Green zones are located near rivers and wells. Since there is no concealment in the desert, the enemy will hide in the green zones, especially larger ones.

When we arrived back in Kabul, the helicopter landed just before a dust storm struck the city.


This picture is a Soviet version of the C-141 , except the engines are much smaller on the Soviet aircraft. This particular bird, flown by contractors obviously had an engine fire and the guys crawling over the plane are stripping its parts. I spotted this damaged aircraft on a quick trip to Kandahar.